Here’s a new sci-fi short that features some solid world-building. Lunar, by Tyson Wade Johnson, jumps off from modern concerns about an intrusive surveillance state and reliance on drones to create a future America in which a faceless police force holds civilians under its thumb. It’s a place where walking down the street with your face covered is illegal; even wearing a hood is enough to have the robo-cops on your ass.

All that is just setup for a story about a man convicted for basically nothing, after which he’s sent to a lunar prison that turns out to be not quite what the public thinks it is. So add the privatization of prisons and some Judge Dredd-style paranoia to the mix of influences.